


we meet in all the broken places

by allyourdarlings



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 4x22 AU, Captain Swan - Freeform, Captain Swan AU - Freeform, F/M, Gen, season 4 finale au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5863711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyourdarlings/pseuds/allyourdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma calls him a hero. But heroes take the hard path. And for Killian Jones, there's no harder path to walk than one without Emma. So he doesn't. Season 4 finale AU. Rated for language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sewing by moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before I saw the finale but based on speculation that Emma would sacrifice herself to save everyone else's happy endings (other than Killian's, of course). So no Camelot, no Merlin and no explanation about the dagger from the Apprentice. All our heroes knew was that someone had to absorb the power of the dagger before the Darkness destroyed Storybrooke.

Emma is sewing by moonlight. She has seen Killian do this before, his nimble fingers creating neat straight stitches with ease. She had teased him then, calling him a regular old Betsy Ross, and he had surprised her by responding that he was hardly embroidering five-point stars. She had underestimated how much he had been trying to adapt to her realm, how many hours he must have spent in the library pouring over history books and how-to guides, learning things others take for granted or have forgotten about. She had also underestimated his relationship with the librarian, Emma thinks bitterly, as she struggles to push the needle through the layers of thick sailcloth.

She had always been underestimating him.

She knew he would try to stop her from absorbing the power of the dagger. She had been prepared for his pleas and even an attempt to wrestle the dagger away from her. She had seen the man behind the pirate for so long that she had foolishly forgotten about his sleight of hand. Especially when that hand wasn't his. (She had ensured his hand was held by hers, close to her heart.)

She had been frozen – _fucking_ frozen – by squid ink thrown by an apologetic Belle. Apologies mean nothing to her because it doesn't change what was done. _She_ was supposed to make the sacrifice, she was supposed to save the happy endings. And she hadn't been able to even _move_ , hadn't been able to do _anything_ , as he took the dagger away from her and told her for the first time (the last time), in the plainest and most powerful words known in any realm, _I love you_.

Then lightening struck Killian.

There was nothing left of him. No remnant of him remaining – no hook, no dagger, nothing.

He was nothing more than a memory seared into all the places her heart was broken.

She had initially wanted to burn everything so deep was her rage, her misery, her despair. Killian had warned her that darkness could creep up on you but it wasn't even close to that for her, it raged like a wildfire. She didn't recognize the person who pulled Belle down to her knees by her hair. She didn't remember pushing her parents and Regina back with an angry swipe of her arm. She didn't even know she was heading to the Jolly Roger until she got there. In those darkest moments after Killian's sacrifice, she wanted the ship at the bottom of the harbor, she wanted to wipe it all away. She didn't want any reminder of him, of how he scaled her walls and got her to open her heart after so many years lost, only to leave her behind. She wanted any reminder of him gone – _like him_ – so that the remnants of him inside of her heart could burn away too.

But the moment she had set fire to one of the Jolly's sails, her anger flickered out like a candle in a gale and she found herself scrambling to preserve everything that used to be his, everything he once held dear. The Jolly was saved but Emma found herself on the deck of his ship, clutching a half burnt sail to her, feeling like she had lost more of him with the ease she allowed herself to slide into darkness.

So she is learning to repair sails. She had stitched some hand-me-downs back in foster care but she never had the patience to be very good at it. And sailcloth is a much more challenging material to work with. She can almost hear Killian's voice – _I love a challenge_.

Killian's sacrifice is being heralded by Storybrooke as heroic. Or at least, that's what her parents have told her. Losing Killian can never be a victory for her, no matter how many happy endings he has saved. So though Mary Margaret says that the celebration at Granny's is an appropriately muted affair, Emma does not attend.

The most painful part of it all is that he didn't even think of himself as a hero – he probably thought he was taking the easier path out. He couldn't bear losing her so he lost himself instead.

She wishes she had been able to convince him he was a hero. She wishes she had told him all the things that reside in her heart. She wishes many things. She probably should be wishing he has found peace in death but she can't. Because she wishes he is still beside her.

But she knows about broken dreams as much as she knows about broken hearts and all she can do is keep sewing and hope that one day she can stitch together her broken heart enough to forgive herself for not telling him _I love you, I love you, I love you_ before it was too late.


	2. burn it all away

****_It burns_.

Killian has known darkness before, he thought he has known the blackest parts of a man, but _this_ – this is something else entirely. Because this is not just his darkness. This is a darkness as old as time that is burning through his veins, filling him with the hatred and rage of hundreds of Dark Ones unable to turn away from the temptation of the dagger, of evil that has filled worlds with hate and sorrow and anger. And he drowns under this black pain until all he can feel is the burning of his soul, until he loses semblance of self and his last conscious thought is that death would be a welcome companion.

When he wakes, the sound of death is beating through his heart and he grimaces at the irony. He's not dead – yet death is running black in his blood, in every breath he takes, in everything he sees. There's also a lot of pain, in his limbs, in his heart, in all the spaces in-between. He wonders, when it is over, whether there will be anything of him left. He doesn't know whether it would better or worse to have a part of him in the monster that he will become.

He wishes he could drive the dagger deep into his chest, to end what he will become before he becomes it. But he can't. Because he knows now that he has become the Dark One that all the darkness inside of him must be tethered to a soul and he rather continue burning in agony than allow Emma Swan to carry this burden. So he tucks the dagger safely into his coat and stumbles into the shadows of this unknown world he has found himself in.

Night tumbles into night into night. And it's all too familiar but not. The loss of time, the loss of self, the fall into darkness. He knows this – _but_ not _this_. It doesn't matter though because before, he didn't have anything to live for and now, he does this for _Emma, Emma, Emma._ And he wants to destroy and burn and rage but the anger in him is not really his own, the dark impulses in him are not really his own, and he just has to hold onto the part that belongs to Emma to hold in the dark power burning his fingers from inside out.

He keeps to himself, to the shadows. When he was still a man, he prided himself on getting to know the lay of the land in any port he made, in any realm he crossed. But here, he stays away. It's already unbearably hard to hold onto the part of himself that remembers what love is, that remembers green eyes and hair like the sun. He doesn't even realize that he had transported himself to the fishing village where he grew up as a boy. Of course, the village he had known has changed since he was a child, weathered far too many storms, lost much to the sea. But in one of his final moments before becoming the Dark One, he had cried for home without knowing. So he is here, becoming a shadow, wandering amongst broken trees, along a colorless coast, and here he thinks he will wander until all worlds are no more.

But one day he hears a child cry and he is running towards the sound before he has even given it a second thought. She's small, thin, but spry, holding onto what little she has in a threadbare bag close to her chest, but she's no match for the two men hovering over her who don't care if a child starves as long as there is food in their bellies.

It's almost instinctual – reaching into the closest man's chest. He can feel _everything_ – the man's life force pulsing underneath the tight grip of his fingers, the underlying fear causing this stranger's heart to race, but even more than that, Killian feels the power of having complete control over someone else's life. And death. It is _enthralling_. He squeezes the heart in his hand. The man's scream is unbelievably satisfying. And Killian can feel himself grin for the first time in memory. He wants to hear that scream again. He wants to _cause_ it. And without knowing, he lets green eyes and reluctant smiles, blonde hair and white light, _go_. This is the true start of the fall.

But then the child's voice saves him.

"Please, no, sir. S'not right."

He looks down to find the little girl pulling at his sleeve, her large eyes pleading mercy though she is the one who needed saving. Killian thinks he knows someone else like that, who saves others at the expense of themselves. But he can't remember the face nor the name. He doesn't realize he has forgotten, that he had let her go when he wasn't holding on – because the thing with forgetting is, you can't remember when it's already gone. Killian shakes himself a bit, feeling despair at something lost but not knowing what, and when he looks around, he is surprised to find his arm elbow deep in a man's chest. He can't really recall doing it but then he feels this dark pulse ripple through his arm. It doesn't feel like this magic is even his own – more like, it has its own life or thousands of them. It feels hungry, angry and all too foreign – and Killian lets go of the heart in his fist and pulls his arm back.

The other man blinks at him, as though surprised he is still alive, before realization he is free seems to kick in and he's running. The thought of stabbing the man in the back makes Killian's blood hum. He reaches for his dagger but then a small hand slips into his and the rising magic in him seems to settle once again.

"Thank you," the girl is saying.

"I wanted to kill him."

"You don't have to."

"But I wanted to kill him," he finds himself pleading, confessing, crying to the child. "I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill him." And by the end, Killian isn't sure if _he_ had wanted it but _someone_ , _something_ wanted it. And he has to hold onto the child's hand until the magic quiets and night has come and he falls asleep.

When he wakes, the girl is sitting next to him.

"You should run."

"I have nowhere to go."

The word _orphan_ rises in his mind and a familiar yet foreign feeling tears at his heart. "I'm not a good man. I'm not sure I'm even a man anymore. There's dark magic in me," he tries to explain. "It wants to burn out of me." He hadn't known before but using magic makes him _want, want, want_ so badly – to do more magic, to use it to commit violence, to destroy.

"That wasn't the man who saved me last night," the girl says as she looks unblinkingly into his eyes.

Killian tries to think of the man he was before but he can't remember. He can only hold onto what is in front of him. It makes him shake, to know something is forever lost, that he has let something go without even meaning to, that it has been replaced by the magic beating inside him, wanting to darken everything. The thought of being lost at sea comes to mind unbidden but he doesn't know _why_ and it makes him feel even further adrift. "What's your name?" he asks the girl, seeking something real to hold onto.

"I don't really have one," the child shrugs, her thin shoulders poking through her threadbare clothes. "I can't remember what my mum used to call me before she left so I make up a new one each full moon." She leans in closer to him and he sees some of her nonchalance fall away. "You could give me a name, if you'd like," she smiles shyly.

He doesn't recall having any children but he understands immediately. She seeks an anchor too. "Can I call you Leia?" he asks. He doesn't know where the name comes from but it sounds right the moment he says it. And when she smiles and nods in acceptance, he feels peace for the first time in memory.


	3. in all the places you seek

****"Why does this keep happening to me?" Emma grumbles as she stares up at the unfamiliar canopy.

"Look on the bright side. We can finally have an adventure together," David all but crows as he holds his hand out to his daughter.

Emma ignores it and scrambles to her feet on her own. "Really? We just fell through a portal." She used to wonder how Alice felt when she had tumbled down the rabbit hole. (Of course, that was before she realized Alice was probably _real_ and probably _had_ tumbled down a rabbit hole.) But back then, poor orphaned Emma used to sit in a dark corner of some library in Minnesota and think of the sensation of falling, of finding a new world and discovering everything was upside down. _That_ Emma had needed a world that was upside down. _This_ Emma needed this shit to stop. No one had mentioned how your shoulders would twist the wrong way when you hit the ground or how it would ache to be torn away from the familiar – whether up was up or up was down or everything was sideways – it was just… _familiar_ and you knew your way around, you knew your way back. There's no running away when you don't know which direction you're headed.

"And what about Neverland?" Emma asks in a weak attempt to appease David whose pout she can see without even looking at him. _That was one great twisted adventure together_ , she thinks bitterly.

"We were all there. It wasn't the same, it wasn't special," David insists as he follows his daughter already marching into the thick of the forest. "Your mother got to do this with you. Even Hook has–" David stops abruptly. He stops walking too. Emma has also frozen several feet ahead of him.

Emma wants to tell her dad that _it's okay_ , he can mention Hook, a part of her even wants to remind him that his name is _Killian_ and he has been with her _both_ times before _and_ in Neverland too, but it feels as though all her emotions are caught in her throat and she _just can't_ , because of course it's not okay. Hook is gone, has been gone for two years now, and she is in a new world for the first time without him.

It's never hurt quite this way before. She has done this before. She has lost more than once. There was Lily and Ingrid, Neal and Walsh, even Graham. And she had loved them or thought she had loved them. But those losses have never felt like an open throbbing wound that would never close, have never felt like it reached to the very bottom of her soul. She had been able to pick herself up after each of those losses, build up her walls and go on. But it wasn't the same with Killian's. Was this what it was like to lose a kindred spirit, maybe a true love? A part of her wishes she regrets even meeting Killian but she can't. She loved him too much. She loves him still.

"Let's just try to figure out where we are and how to get back to Storybrooke," Emma finally says, managing to keep the waver out of her voice. She puts one foot in front of the other, focusing on her steps. _One, two, one, two_ is easy enough. It's easier at least to fall into a routine than drown out thoughts of Killian and love and worlds upside down.

They only run into a few travellers. There's apparently nothing further inland and only a decrepit fishing village on a rocky coast. Each traveler shakes his or her head at the word "magic." One elderly woman with a blind eye confirms that it has long been gone from this land. "Some people don't even know what magic is anymore," she croaks.

"We came from the Land Without Magic," Emma grumbles later as night is falling and she can't even generate a flame. "That should mean all other lands have magic." It means _she_ should be able to do magic here but staring at the pile of kindling in front of her doesn't appear to be working. She tries throwing her arms out and wiggling her fingers.

"It just looks like you are doing jazz hands."

"Not helping, _David_."

She tries to put her whole body into the motion. How the hell are they going to get back if she can't do any magic?

" _Don't_ tell me what that looked like," she says before David can say anything.

They take turns sleeping on the cold forest floor but as dawn breaks on the second day, Emma feels something stirring her awake and it takes her a moment to recognize the hum of her magic, pulling at her, leading her.

She throws a glance over at David. "Um, I'll just be a second. I need to go down to the river."

When she gets down to the water, she's not quite sure what to do. There's something compelling her here, something familiar but not. She looks at the opposite shore but there's nothing except trees. She feels it though. She puts her hands out, willing her magic to _do something_ , _anything_ , open a portal so she can get the hell out of dodge and all the forest leaves out of her hair, or maybe even brew a fucking pot of coffee. But again, nothing, it just hums under her skin, feeling almost content. But she doesn't know why. She trusts her magic like she trusts her gut but a part of her is scared, because magic comes from emotion and what sort of emotion, what sort of pull, would draw out her magic when nothing else has so far?

But she was born brave, had to grow up brave, was taught to be brave by a man that gave her everything he could, including his life. She touches the bit of sail she has tied around her ring finger and walks into the water, following where her magic might take her.

"Hello."

Emma's heart stops. She isn't facing the speaker but she would know that voice anywhere – it haunts her waking dreams and her darkest nights, it's sealed in her heart, it's on a damn voice message on her phone that she listens to over and over again until she can't stop. But _it just can't be_. Hope is a dangerous thing, especially when it's false. There is something playing her false here, it _has to be_ , and she should run as fast as she can, faster than she's ever run from anything before, but she can't. Because she needs it to be true.

She turns in the direction of the voice and he is there. Ocean blue eyes staring deeply into her own and she is drowning in them.

"Killian?" she whispers.

"Ah, so you've heard of me?" he replied, his words too familiar, striking at her heart. But his voice is different, the look in his eye is different, until he is looking away. "The Dark One," he calls himself.

"No," Emma croaks in response, realizing what she had missed in her initial shock of seeing his alive. He didn't know her, he didn't remember her, she was a stranger to him.

"Don't worry, lass. I'm not here to hurt you," he replies, misinterpreting her response. "I just…"

"Emma?" David's voice comes from behind her.

Emma turns her head towards the sound instinctively but realizes her mistake the moment she does. She twists back but Killian is already gone.

"No, wait!" she cries, scrambling towards where he had stood. She looks around frantically even though she knows he's gone. Because she can't feel him anymore – her magic is silent again, no longer directing her towards him. Still, she can't just give up, not when she thought he was long dead, and he is alive and breathing and she had felt him both stirring and quieting her magic, bringing her back alive, stitching together all the parts that had been broken. She falls over a fallen branch and stubs her toes and she's suddenly crying and laughing, overcome with relief at finding him, grief for believing him dead and failing to look for him, and _hope hope hope_ , that she thought she never would have again, and _love love love_ because she loves this man with every beat of her heart and she has it, she has a second chance now. She's never been to a new world without Killian and now she will never have to be.

"Emma! Emma, what happened?" David pants as he breaks through the tree line and nearly trips over her fallen form.

Somehow she manages through the tears and the laughter to tell David that _she believes_ – she believes in the fucking family motto – that they will find the ones that they love, even if they have been separated by realms and curses and memory loss and death and even the darkest of nights. "I believe, Dad."

"Ah, yeah, that's good, sweetheart," David nods, clearly not understanding. He helps her up and this time, she lets him.

"I believe," she repeats, one hand holding her father's while using the thumb of her other ro rub the pice of sail on her finger, _his_ piece of sail. Because it should have been impossible, it should have been something that only happened in storybook fairytales, not in her life, but it's real, Killian Jones, _he's alive_. And she is going to find him because she will always find him.


	4. where you can't go

****He marks time by Leia's height. She has become everything to him now, all he has, and there will be no time after her. While he will continue until the worlds end, she will not.

He thinks about it, of course. How he could use magic to keep her with him. Always. But he doesn't use magic anymore. Not since that one day. And he knows anyway, without asking her, that she wouldn't want him to tear worlds apart to achieve something so unnatural. As unnatural as he is.

"Look at how much I've grown, Papa!" Leia exclaims, interrupting his melancholy thoughts. She is squinting up at the latest mark he has scratched into the face of the red stone wall. Nearly half a finger higher than the last one.

He can't help but smile at her enthusiasm. "Aye, I see that, little love," he murmurs in reply. "You're growing so fast."

She turns to him and smiles. "Don't worry, Papa," she says knowingly as she wraps her small arms around his neck. "I'll always be your daughter."

And he holds onto this moment and his Leia with all that he has left of his human heart. It's not much but it is everything. She keeps the darkness at bay, the blackness of hundreds of angry souls tamed, and he needs this memory to last for the rest of his wretched eternity.

They eventually take a skiff out onto the water, sailing smartly in and out of inlets. Sometimes he doesn't know what he is capable of until he does it. Raising a child, docking a ship, navigating by the stars. It all feels natural. Normal. And he finds having a routine, being normal, helps. He can be like everyone else, he can have a daughter, a life, and a brief moment of happiness to light the way, to keep the dark away.

But of course something changes. _Everything_ changes. Just like Leia will grow and eventually leave him to the world, the world will distort and remake itself – it will disrupt him, pull him away from what he can handle. It will not leave him in peace, not even in misery or suffering, it must _challenge_ him. And he feels it the moment it happens. Like the world has broken apart and been brought back together. But it's not the same because he can feel his magic stir from where he had hoped to banish it forever, from where his heart beats, in an ironic tattoo, a one-two marching pattern of _come back, come back, come back_. He doesn't know what he's supposed to come back to, his hand stilling, the spinnaker he was to deploy left unfurled.

"Papa?" Leia asks when the skiff doesn't take off in the water but bobs up and down on the waves instead.

Her voice always brings him back. He turns to smile at her, as though he isn't scared. But he is. Because though whatever it is that has changed, whatever he feels, doesn't seem dangerous or dark, he _wants_ to know, he wants too much. And he knows all about the dangers of wanting without needing to remember it.

Only a day later – or was it two? or an eternity? because it feels like time itself has bent and stretched to torture him – he can't deny the pull, the hum under his veins, the beat inside of him any longer. He leaves Leia with the baker's wife. Though he doesn't menace the village, they all know better than to cross him. Perhaps it's the perpetual scowl on his face or how dark his blue eyes are, nearly black as night. Either way, he knows she is safe amongst warm breads and motherly arms and it's a small comfort to him. He wants to be the one to keep her safe, he wants to not worry about anything but her (he doesn't even want to worry about her but he's a father now and she's his daughter so he will worry). But, he won't risk it. He won't risk _her_ , whatever it is that is calling him.

It is unexpected, like a warm summer storm. Only it's calmer, comforting even. It is beautiful. _She_ is beautiful. And light and achingly familiar. _Emma_ , he hears his companion call her. _Emma, Emma, Emma_. The name teases him. He likes the sound of it. But it doesn't seem quite right. Not that any of it matters, she's not a lost soul for him to save, she doesn't need someone as broken as him.

He leaves.

She finds him.


	5. all you leave behind

 

She should've known better.

She let hope fill her, allowed it to get pass her haphazard stitches, into her half-sown heart, until she was floating on some magical ship on its way home. But every happy ending that has ever been in her grasp has always fallen short. Ingrid, Neal, Graham, Walsh. Even her parents have disappointed her and her friendship with Regina – if you can call it that – remains uneasy. And Killian. She fought him, resisted him, loved him, and lost him across time and realms. And now that she's found him, all she wants to do is take him home with her.

She thought their love had passed the fucking universe's test. After all, for two years, she had thought he was lost to her forever only for her to fall into the same realm where he's been. If that's not fucking destiny, then what _is_?

But he is adamant. Of course, he is. He may not remember who he is, he may be struggling with some ancient voodoo magic in him, but she sees him behind the Lost Boy, Captain Hook, the Dark One, she has _always_ seen him. And Killian Jones will not tap into any dark magic to open a portal to another world at a stranger's behest. And he's not going to abandon his adopted daughter, much less let her walk into an unknown world.

That's the man she loves.

Fuck irony.

"We need to get back," David says quietly, apologetically.

"You know, don't you?" she spits out. Her anger has no outlet except her voice.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but we do."

Of course, they do. But it's easier for him to say. He is not leaving anyone behind. But she is.

"I know," she replies. This time, she cannot hide the break of her voice that goes all the way down to her heart.

 

* * *

 

It's easy to find him now. Now that she can access her magic again and she knows what to look for. It's like the echo of her own heart.

They find Killian and Leia along the shoreline, collecting starfish and throwing them back into the water. She takes a moment to watch the former pirate as he leans down and murmurs instructions to the little girl he has taken as his own. This is Killian Jones as a father, caring and tender even at his darkest. She tries not to think of Leia running along the docks in Storybrooke, a place she'll never see, or Killian holding a baby that will never be, all soft skin and blue eyes.

Leia catches sight of them and waves. Soon, she is running over to them, two starfish in her tiny hands. "Do you want to save a starfish?"

Emma didn't think her heart could break anymore. It's a senseless exercise. For every starfish they save, ten more must be washing ashore. But David smiles down at the girl and Emma reaches out for a starfish too. They cannot resist.

Emma throws it with everything she has. It may be futile but she might as well give the sea creature its best chance.

"Well done, Swan."

It's the little things that hurt her the most. Calling her by her last name, quirking his eyebrow at her, smiling bashfully. These were all things he used to reserve just for her. She _misses_ him. She _will_ miss him.

"Why do you do this?"

"Pardon?"

"It's useless, trying to save these starfish," she says, gesturing at David and Leia wandering further along the shore, almost lost against the grey of the sea.

He is silent for a long time and she doesn't think he will respond. But against the waves crashing to shore, he asks her, "You think I should give up?"

"You never would," she responds. It is what she admires most about him. He has defied death and time and the impossible in his devotion. First, to Milah. And then, to _her_. Now, to Leia. She now must leave him to Leia.

She feels a pang of regret that they've never seen Star Wars together. He would've liked Princess Leia. And Han Solo.

"And you?" he asks, breaking her out of her reverie of things that would never be. "Are you giving up in your quest to return home?"

"No," she shakes her head. "I can't, I have a son…"

Killian bows forward, the weight of darkness, of regret and things unspoken on his shoulders. "I'm sorry I can't help you. If–"

"No, no, no," she shakes her head in protest. "I'm not here to ask you to use magic again. I can save myself. I just…I just wanted to say goodbye."

"Oh," he responds, his confusion evident. She's not sure if she is imagining the old sadness in his eyes. "Then how will you do it?"

Emma flexes her hands and sparks shoot out from her fingertips.

"You have magic," he breathes.

"I do. Hopefully enough to get us home. It wouldn't work when I first got here. Not until…" _Not until I met you_ , she wants to say, she thinks of saying. But she looks away instead, unable to look at him as she acknowledges to herself that he was able to awaken the magic within her.

"Will you come back?"

Her head snaps up and she stares at him. The sadness she sees in his eyes is not imagined. He will miss her, too. She wonders why she hadn't thought of this before. Coming back. Perhaps because she had been so focused on having to let him go, she hadn't thought about fighting her way back. The Killian Jones she knew would have fought. He would have never given up on her.

She steps forward and holds his face in her hands. Her left thumb traces the scar on his cheek. "This is not going to make much sense to you but I need to tell you something. I love you, Killian Jones. You scarified yourself to save me, to save the town. Being a hero sometimes just sucks. You don't always get what you want. You were ripped from me. You were – no, you _are –_ my happy ending. I was so hopeful that I would get it back when I found you but of course, happy endings don't come easily. You have to _fight_ for them. And I'm going to fight for it, for you, for me, for _us_. I may have to leave but I will find you again. I vow this to you."

She seals it with a kiss.

 

 

 


	6. come back to me

She crashes on the pavement hard but she feels it in her heart more than her knees. She feels everything in her fucking heart. Before she can take another breath, her father's arm is around her waist trying to hoist her up and her mother is taking her hands.

"I'm alright, I'm alright," she mumbles irritably. She allows Henry to come close to give her a hug. "What did I miss?"

"Not much, Miss Swan. We were trying to find a way to cross realms to retrieve you and your father," Regina responds in her no-nonsense voice, "but it seems you can manage that on your own."

"You were trying to cross realms by standing on Main Street?" Emma asks as she looks around.

"This was where you disappeared. It seemed like a good place to investigate." Regina is rolling her eyes, of course, but then she pauses, mid-roll. "Uh, Miss Swan…"

"I don't have time for whatever it is. I want to know how you were able to locate me. I need to go back, I –"

"Are you sure you want to go back?" Regina asks as she tilts her chin up.

"Yes, I –" She's going back to Killian. She's going to find him again. And nothing will stop her. Not even that weird chin tilt thing Regina is doing. "What are you doing? What do you mean by that?" She copies Regina's movement.

"I think she means me, love."

Emma stills. There's nothing worse than giving into false hope. Killian had said he couldn't follow her, that he wouldn't use magic, that he would never leave Leia.

"Well, actually, us perhaps," he continues.

"I'm here too!" Leia chirps.

Emma slowly turns around and her parents step aside to give her a full view of her pirate and the little girl holding onto his hook.

"You said you couldn't follow me into the dark," she whispers, recalling their last moments together before she stepped into the portal back to Storybrooke.

"Aye," he smiles as he moves closer. "I didn't. I followed my heart. Back to you."

"But you don't remember me." She wants it to be true, she wants it to be true, but she needs to be sure.

Killian gives her a fond indulgent look like he understands and she wants to fall back to her knees again. "It seems I could never really forget you. You're seared into my very heart."

How the fuck was this man real?

He then taps his lower lip and smiles playfully. "That kiss goodbye might have helped. It took me a moment. Sorry about that, I had three hundred years of memories just –"

But Emma doesn't let him finish. She is launching herself into his arms because that move is too familiar, the look in his eyes is too familiar, and when she lets go of her fear and disbelief, her heart feels his heart and she knows it is truly him.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," she says into his skin as though she can brand it there. She says it for all the times she failed to say it before and she says it for how much she means it. "You came back, you came back to me."

"Aye, I'll always come back to you."

"You've deprived me of my dashing rescue though," she says as she rests her forehead against his.

Killian laughs and the sound rumbles through her. She feels it in her heart.

"You're going to have to marry me instead."

"I think that can be arranged."

"Good." She pulls back slightly to take Leia by the hand and wave her family closer. "C'mon, we're heading over to the Jolly Roger now."

"Now?"

"Yeah, now. I'm all in now."

"I'm all in always," he vows to her.

"Yeah, remember that when you see your sails." But she's sure her stitching will get better with his help.

 

 ** _Fin_**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave any feedback you may have. Anyone noticed the Star Wars references?


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